Tag: faith

  • Persevering the Social Distancing of Virtual Relationship

    Persevering the Social Distancing of Virtual Relationship

    Letters to a Distanced Church

    A quick glance at the map reveals many first century churches near the Aegean Sea, a long voyage from Jerusalem.

    Believers of The Way had to depend on distant leaders to sow and nurture virtual relationships:

    • to each other,
    • to other churches (many in local or nearby homes)
    • and to distant Shepherds of Christ like Peter and Paul.

    The Apostles embraced these saints of so many distant churches with Christ’s love. They loved their flocks through letters and by occasional visits of their founding fathers (Apostles and other disciples of Jesus). Each of these mission churches had its own shepherd, sometimes a father of the household where they met.

    Like the Gospels, Church Letters (Epistles) arrived by messenger or with its own pastor (Shepherd or father) returning from Jerusalem, Rome or other place where the Apostles could encourage them in Christ.

    A voyage to Thessalonica from Rome or Jerusalem is about the same distance.

    Pastoral letters (from the Shepherds or Church Fathers) would be read in as many of the churches along its route as practically possible.

    Do you suppose that the saints of the Church in Thessaloniki suffered social distancing from their local friends, neighbors and businesses?

    YES. In fact many early Christians were socially distanced from their own communities and neighbors due to threat of persecution or even death.

    2 Thessalonians

    from the Church Fathers of the First Century

    Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

    To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

    Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

    We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is only fitting, because your faith is increasing abundantly, and the love of each and every one of you toward one another grows ever greater…

    Hear Paul’s heart for them and note how these socially distanced Christians coped with a new reality much different than before.

    4 As a result, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God:

    • for your perseverance and faith
    • in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure.

    This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you indeed are suffering.

    Commentary on a too-familiar setting
    • Does this also encourage you in your social isolation from the brothers and sisters of Christ’s Church?

    Picture this background from commentary of John MacArthur:

    ..pressure and persecution had also increased. The seeds of false doctrine concerning the Lord had been sown, and the people were behaving disorderly.

    So Paul wrote to his beloved flock who were: 1) discouraged by persecution and needed incentive to persevere; 2) deceived by false teachers who confused them about the Lord’s return; and 3) disobedient to divine commands, particularly by refusing to work.

    Who witnesses Christ’s love in you?

    Our own 21st century community also watches us, even as the Lord Jesus assures His distant lambs held near in every era,

    “In the world you have tribulation, G2347 but take courage; I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33 NASB

    There’s that PRESSURE AGAIN.
    Pressure from Affliction – ours and our loved ones.

    Paul assures the Church of Relief & Retribution

    For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict G2346 you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted G2346 and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God, and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

    2 Thessalonians 1:6-8 NASB

    Sinners AFFLICTED — Sinners without hope as once we were.

    SEPARATED by our sin, DISTANCED from the Lord God never seeking Christ Jesus, the Savior who cleanses our soul.

    Afflicted by others, but also sinners spared from Judgment by the mercy of the Lord Jesus.

    • COVID – Social Distancing for a time known to the Lord.
    • Judgment – Just punishment separating sinners from God forever.
    • COVID will end, replaced by other pandemics of the world’s sin.
    • Judgment will come to the unrepentant after our mortal time expires.

    These people will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power..

    2 Thessalonians 1:9 NASB

    Yet in Christ, our Lord and Savior, with the Presence of the Holy Spirit; even now — in these days of affliction — we draw near to the love and light which shines through the darkness of this world.

    Amen.

  • + talk of Jesus .com

    + talk of Jesus .com

    LATEST POSTS

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    New Post Series to be continued…

    Think of our post series as reading a continuing story in several scriptures from the Bible on a TOPIC relevant to 21st century Christians.

    ADD your questions or thoughts as a COMMENT on any post.

    APRIL 2021 Series: (TBA as part of Christians under construction)

    • JANUARY 2021 TOPICS:
      • adversity
        • COVID
        • loneliness (social distancing)
        • Shaken!
    • FEBRUARY 2021 Series:
      • Apocalypse – 7 seals of Revelation
      • Rebellion – a return to Self
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      • “You will not be led” continued
      • separate posts on EASTER
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  • Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – Thomas

    Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – Thomas

    Jesus is risen!

    .. You can’t prove it, can you?

    Christ Born & Witnessed, Crucified, Risen, Ascended..

    by Roger Harned

    It’s really easy to hear someone’s story of a baby born in a manger during the census of Augustus Caesar.

    The Babe in a manger (and His mother) have become our iconic emojis of virtue.

    Roger Harned talkofJesus.com – on Christmas traditions replacing the significance of Christ’s Resurrection

    The Witness of Thomas

    Imagine what Thomas must have pondered before he saw Jesus once more..

    His miracles were authentic. He was a man like us, yet so unlike us.

    We discovered many times that the Lord Jesus was more than any man we had ever met, even John the Baptist..

    Like when He calmed the raging Sea of Tiberius, fed thousands and especially when Jesus healed the sick and even raising some like Lazarus just recently from the grave.

    But we witnessed also the defeat of Israel’s Messiah, our only hope — His rejection by our own Jewish leaders and Rome’s cruel sentence of His death on a cross, mocking our Rabbi as “Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

    I wasn’t close for His execution, for I was afraid like all the others; but Jesus is certainly dead as any other nailed to a Roman Cross.

    John 20 (continued)

    John continues his witness of Jesus’ resurrection appearances which first were to a group of women, Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – Mary Magdalene then to ten of the Eleven Witnesses to Jesus Risen! – the Eleven remaining behind locked doors.

    This is the witness of Jews who had hoped that Jesus would restore the Kingdom of Israel.
    (Translations incl. Complete Jewish Bible) 
    All of the Twelve were born as Jews, as was the Lord Jesus (Yeshua).

    24 Now T’oma [Didymus in common Greek] (the name means “twin”), one of the Twelve, was not with them when Yeshua came.

    When the other talmidim [disciples] told him,

    “We have seen the Lord,”

    he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger into the place where the nails were and put my hand into his side,

    I refuse to believe it.”

    Believe it .. or not

    Well there it is: Like what happens so frequently, someone else tells us about the biggest event ever in their lives.. AND we missed it. Just like Thomas, we weren’t there.

    I either don’t believe them, pause with the uncertainty of doubt .. OR maybe I find it beyond belief that the Lord did not also choose ME to be part of such a life-changing moment.

    Perhaps you and I are not so unlike ‘doubting Thomas’ as we would like to believe.

    A timely note about time:
    
    Even though we've slowed the actual timeline of events between Jesus raising Lazarus and His own Resurrection, I will not delay John's Gospel an additional week to reflect real time. RH

    26 Eight days later His disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst..

    Although the doors were locked, Yeshua came, stood among them and said, “Shalom aleikhem!”

    27 Then he said to T’oma, “Put your finger here, look at my hands, take your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be lacking in trust, but have trust!”

    Witnessed Crucified; Witnessed Risen

    Thomas finally experiences the risen Christ Jesus the slain Messiah of Israel the same as the other Apostles and the women who saw Him first.

    Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

    John 20:27 NKJV

    28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”

    Depicting Christ Crucified and Jesus Risen to Life!

    The scene of Thomas witnessing the wounds of the Risen Messiah, Jesus, their friend and their Teacher is beyond illustration.

    John must have recalled Jesus’ similar approach to Martha just before the Lord raised her brother Lazarus to life.

    “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus had asked the bereaved sister of Lazarus. “Do you believe this?”

    John 11:25-26 excerpt with context

    Martha and Mary had mourned the death of their brother.

    Mary the mother of Jesus also mourned helplessly. She could not save Him from suffering as she sorrowfully watched His death on a Cross nearby.

    Faithful painters of the Renaissance could neither paint nor sculpt the horror of the Lord Jesus’s wounds.

    Our focus draws to the hearts of the living rather than to the Redeemer of our lives.

    Believe by faith

    29 Jesus said [to Thomas, with all the Disciples present], “Because you have seen me, you have believed.

    Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

    By their witness and that of many others who had seen the risen Christ Jesus, many came to believe by the time John writes his Gospel, even many who would take up their cross to follow Him. These too the Apostle John would witness.

    30 So then, many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you may have life in His name.

    To be continued...
    Next: We will return briefly to further witness of the Eleven near the conclusion of John's Gospel.
    
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